"Whoever saves a Jewish soul, it is considered as if he has saved the world entire" - Talmud Sanhedrin 37A

Friday, January 9, 2009

Always a Jew

Inside every Jew is a spark of G-dliness, a pintele yid, a Jewish soul that yearns to reconnect with HaShem. Even the most distant Jew longs to come back to his people. The Jewish spark cannot be erased or destroyed but is eternal. Even if a Jew, G-d forbid, gets baptized, moves to India and lives in an ashram or joins a cult, he remains a Jew.

5 comments:

" Even if a Jew, G-d forbid, gets baptized, moves to India and lives in an ashram or joins a cult, he remains a Jew."

I thought that would have been patently obvious. A Jew, that is a true descendant of Judah, one of the sons of Jacob, has no prospect of changing his descendency. Just as I cannot change the fact that I am a descendent of my biological father, his father before him and so on back to whomever.

So where is the dividing line? I have friends that dabble in Buddhism, are involved in eastern meditation, yoga, etc....yet are in shul every Shabbat. Everybody knows it...actually, many people do it. It's the chic thing to do these days, however, there is no condemnation coming from anyone. The lines are being blurred and the water is muddy.

Why don't Jews believe in Jesus?

“What is the Jew?...What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish. What is this Jew whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny (and disown) his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?!

The Jew - is the symbol of eternity. ... He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear.

The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity."

- Leo Tolstoy

About Me

"Listen world, I am a Jew, I am a Zionist, and I pledge myself to Return to the bosom of Judaism; to its teachings and commandments, to the Yoke of Heaven to which I gladly bow." --- Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D